Recent Bitcoin block data shows that Bitcoin’s mining pools BTC.com, AntPool and ConnectBTC, respectively mined about 25.7 percent, 16.1 percent and 0.2 percent of all new blocks over the past week. This makes for a combined hash rate of 42 percent; an all-time high for the Chinese mining giant’s mining pools.

Severalmedia sources have since covered this news, reporting that this near-dominance is a major risk to the Bitcoin network.

The Lightning Network (LN) mainnet has almost doubled its node count and capacity in days as Bitcoin users rapidly switch on to its benefits.

Lightning: Core Enthusiasm Yet To Become Ubiquitous

Data from monitoring site #recksplorer shows 107 active nodes, 237 channels and a total Bitcoin load worth just over $ 19,000 – marking considerable growth since Bitcoinist last reported the statistics late last week.

Despite reservations from some well-known Bitcoin industry figures such as Bitcoin.org creator Cobra, Lightning is rapidly gaining prominence and support among users keen to avoid fees and confirmation delays when sending coins.Read more...